Tape 7, Side B
by fang-and-fin
Summary: What if Hannah Baker didn't succeed in killing herself? What if, instead, she was in a coma through the entirety of season one? And what if she woke up, months later, and had to come back to Liberty High to face the consequences of sending out the tapes? AU. Updated every Sunday morning. Reviews/Constructive Criticism always welcome
1. Hannah (1)

**Hannah Baker**

Hello, boys and girls. It's me—Hannah Baker. Live and in stereo, breaking the only promise I ever made to you: _no return engagements._

Which begs the question I've been turning over all day—is something still a lie if you think it's the truth when you say it?

For example, imagine you promise to go to a friend's party, only to get food poisoning an hour before it starts. If you don't show up, does that make you a bad person? And if the answer is no, why not? Because you couldn't have known what the future held? Because it wasn't your fault?

Or if a girl mails out thirteen tapes believing she'll be dead by the time everyone listens to them, only to find herself waking up from a coma three months later, most definitely _not_ dead, does that mean it was all some weird publicity stunt by a manipulative liar and drama queen?

I guess I'll find out public consensus tomorrow—during my first day back at Liberty High.

In the meantime, I'd say no. That's not what this was.

My therapist's theory is that it was all a last ditch attempt to connect to those around me, in the only way that felt safe—that is, in a way that held no chance of rejection or ridicule. Looking back, I think she was right.

And yes. My therapist knows about the tapes. My parents told her. They also handed her a copy, but she didn't listen until I gave her permission—about a month and a half in to the whole therapy deal, because, really, what do I have to hide now? Everybody else already knows everything. And I'm the only one I can blame for that.

 _So, Hannah,_ you may be wondering. _What's the point, now? Why are you still talking to yourself? Has your stint in the psych ward made you even crazier? Is that even_ possible _?_

And I guess the simplest answer is that I don't know if there _is_ a point. I'm not on any kind of mission, this time. I just need someone to talk to, and there isn't anybody else.

It was actually my therapist's suggestion that I return to the tapes. She insists I need to learn to talk about my feelings out before they escalate. The funny things, the only time I feel like I can really be myself is when I'm talking to this stupid recorder. So she said, talk to it more. Use it like a journal. Let it sort out what you feel.

And just what am I feeling tonight, on the eve of my return to Liberty High?

Scared. Unwanted. And I guess, strangely—dangerously—just the smallest bit hopeful.

So, ladies, gentleman, and children of all ages—welcome to Tape 7, Side B.

Welcome to Hannah Baker, trying to find some reasons to live.


	2. Clay (2)

**Clay Jensen**

The night before Hannah Baker comes back to school is the night I lose my virginity.

I don't plan it that way.

I don't even know Hannah is awake until the next morning, when I walk in to school grinning ear-to-ear like an idiot only to find Tony Padilla waiting for me like he is about to tell me my puppy has cancer. Or perhaps looking at Skye like he has to tell her that her puppy has cancer.

We've walked in together.

"No shit," Skye says, in response. For a moment I just stared at her, unable to process absolutely anything but the way the skin around her labret piercing has turned an irritated red since last night. My fault. I got her shirt caught on it as I'd gone to pull it off. Very smooth of me.

I still can't believe I'm dating a girl with a labret piercing.

"I have to go," she says, then, and gives me a quick, dry kiss—knocking her jaw against my cheekbone—before scurrying away.

Fuck. When my brain finally catches up to the moment, that's my first and only thought: fuck.

Then Tony asks me if I wanted to get some air.

So we do.

"Hannah's back," I say, now, and rub my eyes. Hannah. _Hannah._ And I'm fucking hiding from her.

Tony doesn't say anything. He just takes a sip of his coffee. We're out in his car again. Just like we were when I was in the middle of listening to Hannah's tapes. Thinking she wasn't going to wake up again. Thinking she was good as dead. Thinking it was my fault.

"Why didn't you call me to tell me?" I ask. "Why didn't anybody think tell me?"

"I didn't find out until this morning," he admits. "Then I figured it'd be better to tell you in person."

"You _saw_ her?"

"She called me."

"She called you." I don't mean to sound jealous, but I can tell I do.

"She wanted to know if everybody'd listened to the tapes," he explains.

I frown. "What'd you tell her?"

"The truth."

The truth. That Bryce Walker is now aware eleven other people know he's a rapist. Jessica, that she was raped. Courtney, that she's gay…

"I don't think she actually expected it to go through the whole line," Tony says. "Seems like she wishes the tapes never happened more than anybody else on them."

"Probably not more than Alex."

Tony takes a deep breath. "Yeah, I guess not more than Alex."

I've only been to see Standall once since his attempt, and I still can't forget the sight. Thick layers of gauze seeping through with pink and yellow stains held in place by a pirate patch over his left eye. Half his head shaved while the other is a curious mix of bleached white tips and dirty blonde roots.

"How is she otherwise?" I ask. "I mean, like, her health?"

"She hit a nerve in her left hand. It's paralyzed now. But otherwise, she said there's no permanent damage."

I really don't know what's wrong with me. Because all I can think about is the way the fingers of her left hand felt on my face, that stupid night at that awful party.

And then I'm thinking of Skye's hands, other places, and—Jesus. I fucked up everything up.

"What is it?" Tony asks.

I shake my head. "I'm just… I'm glad she's okay."

I tell myself this because it's what I want to believe. It's what I _should_ believe.

Tony seems skeptical, but doesn't press it. "You ever see The Confessions of Tom Sawyer?" he asks.

I blink at him. "Sorry?"

"There's this scene I saw once from the movie. As a kid. Tom gets in some kind of trouble and fakes his own death, then his friend convinces him to come back to see his own funeral. He hides in the rafters of the church, and everybody's saying all these nice things about him, about how much they wish he was back and they'd treat him differently and all that. Then his friend pushes Tom off the ledge, and it turns out nobody really wanted him back all that much. One girl even slaps him." He takes a last sip of his coffee. "Basically, everything just goes to shit."

I look at him blankly. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I don't think Hannah has the resiliency to get through being slapped anymore."

"I said I was glad she's okay."

"Are you really, though?"

I stare out across the parking lot, at all the kids just going about their day like the sky, once fallen, hasn't just now up and put itself back together. Lucky. "I mean, it doesn't really matter, does it? Now that Skye is—"

"What does that have to do with it?"

I stare at Tony.

"You can only care about your significant other? Well, then, shit. What am I doing here with you?"

"Tony—"

"She just needs you to be her friend."

"Last time I tried that, I ended up fucking it up."

"Last time, you didn't really try though, did you?"

The accusation leaves me speechless. I want to defend myself, but he's right, isn't he? I didn't try. Not really. And I've had to live with that, ever since she tried to kill herself.

But then I'm speechless for another reason. Hannah Baker is across the parking lot.


	3. Hannah (3)

**Hannah Baker**

My dad always says the world can be divided into two groups: those who hug with one arm, and those who hug with two. I always sort of thought he was full of shit with that. It seemed like such an oversimplification. At least, it did until this morning.

Now I think he might be on to something.

I was barely out of my mom's car when Tony Padilla's cherry red Mustang lit the corner of my vision, and I glanced over to see both him and Clay Jensen staring back at me. Clay looked away, fast. But Tony got out and strode over, a huge grin on his face.

"Look who's back," he said, and pulled me into a big, two armed hug.

See, the thing about people who hug with two arms—people like Tony—is that they're open. They aren't scared. And because they aren't hiding, they're able to be generous. Kind. Present. They really see the people around them.

All of this went through my head as I struggled to embrace him with my one good arm.

After I loosened my grip just slightly, but not a moment before, he let me go. "You look good, Baker," he said.

I looked over his shoulder and saw Clay, shifting from side to side with his hands in his pockets. He couldn't even meet my eye. And his hug—if you could even call it that—was sort of like a stage kiss: it might've looked like the real thing from a distance, but up close… up close it wasn't anything at all.

"You guys have a good summer?" My voice rose an octave as I spoke. It made me want to wince. I was sure they could tell how uncomfortable I was.

"Just too short," Tony said.

A strange expression crossed Clay's face. I waited. He didn't say anything.

I smiled a little. "Earth to Helmet."

He blinked, as if coming back from some distance. "Yeah," he said dismissively. "Yeah, I mean, I guess it was as good as could be expected."

I nodded, waiting for more. Something, anything. But he didn't offer it.

I stuck my hands in my pockets and smiled until my face was so stiff it felt like hardened plastic.

"… I'm gonna leave you two to talk," Tony said, then.

I glanced after him as he walked away, then looked back at Clay. "I didn't realize you guys were friends."

"Yeah, well, a lot happened while you were…" he stopped short, making an illegible gesture with his hands. He still couldn't quite look at me. It reminded me of the way a stranger might politely avoid your gaze if you if you had spinach in your teeth and they were too polite to say something. Or, you know, if you were standing stark naked in public.

"I guess—I guess it did," I said, and crossed my arms over my chest.

He itched his eyebrow. "He said your arm…"

"Oh. Yeah, it's pretty fucked up. But I'm right-handed, so, could be worse, I guess."

"Otherwise you're, um…"

"Drowning in ellipses?"

"Sorry?"

"Nothing." I shook my head. "It was a joke."

"Oh."

"I still make those," I said. "I know, it's shocking."

"A little."

My smile finally cracked. It was something about his tone. I wanted Helmet, my friend. Instead I was getting Condescending Clay. "You know if there's something—if there's something you want to say, there's no reason you shouldn't just say it."

"Actually, I can think of thirteen reasons I shouldn't."

"I… deserve that." I allowed.

"Fuck," he said. "I didn't mean to say that."

"It's okay. I know… I know what I did was fucked up. Really fucked up. And I know it probably doesn't make a difference, now, but I _am_ sorry. If I could change the past, I mean—"

"Look, don't apologize. This… this isn't how I meant for this to go. At all."

"How you meant for this to go," I repeated.

He met my eye for the first time, and for a moment, I felt like he was as naked as I was. Then, almost immediately, he looked away, shifting his stance.

"I should probably get to class," he said.

I nodded, letting him go.

Clay, the one armed hugger. Just like me.


	4. Clay (4)

**Clay Jensen**

"Let's skip."

Skye stares at me appraisingly. I can't stop fidgeting for shit. This was a bad idea.

"You don't skip, Clay," she says, and gently closes her locker.

"I did." I frown. "Once."

"Yeah, but seeing as you were royally fucked up about Hannah at the time…" She pauses. Glances up at me. I look away.

"Oh," she says. 'Oh' as in—

 _Oh, you're not over it._

 _Oh, you're still into her._

 _Oh, this thing we had over the Summer is ending now, isn't it?_

 _Oh._

"I'm…" But I don't know how to end it.

 _I'm sorry._

 _I'm not still in love with her._

 _I'm just tired._

I'm drowning in ellipsis.

"Alright," she says. "Fuck history. It's just going to repeat itself anyway."

"Really?"

She nods.

I go to kiss her. Just lean in, like I've done a thousand times already this summer. It's impulse, it's habit. But I stop short. Because… _because_.

I swear she can see my thoughts as if they're broadcasted on my forehead, but she doesn't say anything. She doesn't even take my hand as she usually would when dragging me out of my dull orderly routine and on to an adventure. She nods in the direction of the exit, instead, and we leave quickly and quietly.

It's only as we reach the door that I start to feel I'm making some kind of mistake, that I've wasted a huge opportunity. What if Hannah tries to kill herself again after school today? What if the last thing I said to her was—shit. What _was_ the last thing I said to her?

I feel the familiar old pinch in my chest from an anxiety attack and take a deep breath. No. I'm just being ridiculous, now. She wouldn't have gotten released from the psych ward if she wasn't okay. Right?

Was she even _in_ a psych ward?

Another deep breath. The pinch worsens, moving up in scale to a burn.

We reach Skye's car, somehow. I can't remember crossing the parking lot to get here.

She unlocks the door and gets in the driver's side. Even after spending the entire summer dating, I still have a weird feeling whenever I drive somewhere with her. I think it's the smell of her car—the sharp-strange sting of essential oils in my nostrils, the smokey fog of incense in my lungs. It always unsettles me somehow, after growing up in a home that always smelled like Yankee Candles.

She takes the CD out of the player as soon as she starts the car—it's a mix without a name. Instead, it has a drawing of vampire teeth in red sharpie. She replaces it with The Shins—to make me feel better. I put my head back against the headrest and close my eyes.

She doesn't say anything. She just backs up the car and starts driving.

When I open my eyes, we're at a lookout point, about ten minutes out of town.

"You mind?" she asks, nodding to my seat. I reach underneath, getting the Altoid tin of joints she keeps taped under there, and then we both get out of the car.

We walk a while quietly, and end up near the edge of a cliff. She always sits closer to it than I do. I still can't help but be a little afraid of heights.

"You sure you don't want a drag?" she asks as she lights the joint.

"Yeah. I'm sure."

She studies me as she inhales and then holds the smoke in for a moment. Then she says, "Do you remember what I said when we first started hanging out more?"

"'You have to switch your aftershave, you smell like teenage desperation?'"

"Other than that."

I just look at her. I had no idea.

"You asked me… you asked me if I could see us together. For real. Since we were so different."

"Oh." The conversation comes back to me suddenly, with uncomfortable clarity. She'd said not in a million years.

"Right," she says. _"Oh._ I told you I could see the future. _"_

"Maybe I will take a drag," I joke.

She holds out the joint, though, and I find myself taking it. I don't know why. It just happens. Like downing a drink at a party you promised you'd stay sober through.

I inhale until I feel a spark of fire in the back of my throat, then coughing until I'm red in the face.

"Slower and deeper," she says. "You don't want it in your throat. You want it in your lungs. Try again."

I do. And it's actually sort of… nice. Even comforting, in a weird, indescribable way.

She watches me carefully for a moment, then looks out over the cliff.

I hand the joint back.

"You're breaking up with me, Clay," she says, then, and inhales.

How does she make it look so easy? How does she make everything look so easy?

And then her words hit me, on some kind of weird delay. "Wait—what?"

"It was hard enough to share you with Hannah when she was a vegetable. Now that she's awake…" she shrugs.

I try to think of a way to tell her she's wrong. But I can't. She isn't.

Instead I find myself saying, "I love you."

And the dumbest part is, it's the first time I've ever said that to a girl.

She looks at me, smiles. "I know," she says. "Wouldn't it be nice if that were enough?"


	5. Hannah (5)

**Hannah Baker**

I always knew coming back to Liberty High wouldn't be easy, but I don't think I realized exactly how hard it would be until someone whispered, _"Be careful, or she'll put you on one of her tapes,"_ when their friend bumped into me in the hallway.

" _What_ did you just say?" I asked, whirling around to see a complete stranger. She raised both hands as if in surrender and kept walking.

I walked until I saw a familiar face—one of the twelve. Ryan Shaver.

"Does everyone know?" I asked.

He looked at me and immediately turned ghostly pale. It only took him a second to regain his composure and give me a cruel smirk. "Look who the cat dragged back from hell."

"Does everyone know?" I repeated.

"Glad to see you're still dramatic as always."

"Ryan. Answer me."

"Your parents had all of us summoned, Baker. They tried to sue the school. Of _course_ everyone knows."

I felt I was going to be ill. I already knew my parents had tried to sue the school—but, naively, I didn't realize everyone had known why.

"But—"

"Look, I don't have time for this, okay? You already forced me to listen to five hours of your drama in some twisted form of blackmail. I'm not about to be sucked in like Standall was. As far as I'm concerned, you're still in a coma. And if you want to record that, go right ahead. Nobody believes you, anyway." He started to walk away.

I followed. "Wait—what do you mean, sucked in like Standall was?"

Ryan frowned, slowing to a stop. "Jesus. Have you not talked to _anybody_?"

"I spoke to Tony this morning."

"And he didn't mention Standall."

"No. What do you mean, he got sucked in?"

Ryan raised his hands in surrender, which sent an odd chill through me, after the stranger had so recently done it. _I'm not going to touch this mess,_ the gesture seemed to say. _I'm backing away before it can contaminate me, too._

I got my phone out and texted Tony— **What did Alex do?**

He responded only a minute later. **What did you hear?**

I frowned. What a weird response. **I just had a strange conversation with Ryan. He seemed to be hiding something.**

This time the reply took a little longer. **What did he say?**

 **That Alex got sucked in to my drama. But idk what that means.**

Ellipses. For a long, long time. Then, **Meet me after school.**

 **Why won't you just tell me?**

 **I will,** he said. **Just later.**

I sighed, putting my phone in my pocket and heading to class.


	6. Clay (6)

**Clay Jensen**

I don't know how much time has passed since we got to the lookout point. An hour? Two? I glance at my phone. It's been fifteen minutes.

"Do you think it's weird?" I ask. "That we're still sitting here? Shouldn't we be fighting or something?"

"Do you want to fight me?" Skye asks.

"No," I say. "But isn't that how break-ups work? You tell me my taste in music sucks and I'm boring and you hope I'm miserable forever. And I tell you…"

"What?"

"I… don't know." I forgot what I was talking about.

She laughs. "Well, if you figure it out, let me know. In the meantime, I wouldn't feel right fighting the kind of guy who'd bring a knife to a gun fight."

I look up at the clouds dotting the expanse above us. One looks like a horse-shoe.

Am I high? I think I might be high. If I am, though, it's not like anybody said. I don't know exactly what it _is_ like. I try to figure out some way to categorize it, but I can't. "What should I feel like, right now?" I ask.

"You could be talking about literally a million different things. I'm going to need you to be more specific."

"I don't think I feel it."

"The pot?"

"Yeah."

She laughs again. "You feel it, trust me."

"How do you know?"

"Because you look even more spaced out than usual."

"Do I? I'm sorry."

She shrugs. "It's just who you are."

Another cloud. This one looks like… a dick. I want to ask Skye: does that cloud look like a dick? But I don't feel like that's something I'd normally ask. "Do you think it's weird?" I say. "That we're still sitting here? Just broken up?"

"Nah," Skye says. "But that's probably because we were ever really together."

I move to rest my weight on my elbow and look at her. "We just slept together."

She meets my gaze. "I remember," she says.

"So how were we not together?"

"I don't know. We just weren't."

I lay back down.

"You never looked at me the way you looked at her," she says, now.

I suddenly feel oddly queasy. Motion sick, almost. I need something to settle my stomach. "Do you have any snacks back in the car?"

She laughs, but without feeling. "I don't know. Maybe." She holds out the keys. "Look for yourself."

 _Look for yourself._ Not, _Look, for yourself._ Not, _Look for them._ The subliminal message being: Clay, figure your shit out.

Or maybe I'm just reading too much into everything, right now.

Maybe it's the pot.

I find a half-eaten bag of chocolate Teddy Grahams in her back seat. They're slightly stale and I don't even like them to begin with—I have no idea why anyone over the age of five would ever decide to buy them—but by the time I'm back to Skye, I've eaten most of what's left anyway. And I'm still starving.

"None for me?" she says.

"There are still some in there."

She shakes her head. "I want chili fries. Don't you want chili fries?"

"At Bombers? There's no way you're safe to drive."

"Are you kidding? I wake and bake every morning. And my driving record is still a lot cleaner than yours."

"I don't drive."

"You went head over handlebars, like, twice this past year. And I've personally watched you dart out in front of moving cars."

I don't know what to say. Skye never heard the tapes, only the rumors about them. So she doesn't know I was the first person to get to Jeff's accident. _She doesn't know._

I'm still standing. I feel like maybe I should be sitting down by now. Did I forget? How long have I been standing here?

"Come on," Skye says. "We're going."

So I follow her back to the car.


	7. Hannah (7)

**Hannah Baker**

As soon as class ended today, I headed for Tony's car. Everyone who walked by seemed to be staring at me. I tried to ignore it while I waited. Eventually, Tony came out.

He looked worried, but Tony always looked worried. At least, he did around me.

"Where's Clay?" I asked. "Didn't he ride with you today?"

"Nah. His bike's over there."

I looked. So it was. I couldn't help but go on-alert at the idea he might walk out at any moment. Would he come over, if he saw me and Tony standing together? Or would he pretend he didn't see us? I'd bet on the latter.

"Hannah," Tony said.

I glanced back at him.

"You want to go for some coffee?"

"I want everybody to stop being so evasive."

He cocked his head to the side, and looked at me for a moment like I was a problem child. "Alright. Let's walk."

"Walk."

"Yeah. Everybody's staring."

There was relief in someone finally acknowledging it. "Okay," I said.

So we started around the high school, over past the football field. It was nice being able to watch the jocks practice without worrying Justin, Zach, or Bryce was seeing me, since they'd all graduated while I was deep in my Sleeping Beauty act.

"So what's the deal with Standall?" I asked, once we were a bit away from the crowd.

Tony stuck his hands in his pockets. "He's… not doing so well, right now."

"Why not?" I asked.

For a long time, Tony didn't say anything. I was already worried, but my fears began to shift. I'd thought perhaps Alex had said or done something to make things worse for _me_. But now…

"He had an accident," Tony said.

"An accident."

"Hurt himself pretty bad."

I stopped. "What kind of accident?"

Tony frowned, and the worry lines made him look about twenty years older than he was.

"He shot himself," he said.

My legs suddenly went weak. "What?"

"The doctors said he was really fortunate, though. He can still talk—"

"What do you mean, he can still talk? Why wouldn't he be able to talk?"

"The bullet went through the left side of his brain. The part that controls language. So talking, it's a good sign. If he'd aimed differently, he'd probably be dead. But he shot straight through. It exited clean. So, he's okay. Or, he will be."

I sat down on the track, right where we were. Tony sat down, too.

"Alex shot himself in the head."

Tony didn't say anything.

"When did all this happen?"

"Maybe a month after…" He shifted uncomfortably.

"After I sent out the tapes." I closed my eyes. "It's my fault, isn't it?"

Tony looked out, across the football field. "There's never just one reason people do the things they do, Hannah. You should know that better than anybody."

I bit my lip as the tears gathered in my eyes. Tony went to put his hand on my shoulder and I moved back. "Don't touch me," I said.

"Hannah."

I shook my head, pulled my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. Tears began to fall. I ignored them. "Is he still in the hospital?"

"I heard they moved him home last week."

"Have you seen him?"

"I went once. With Clay. It was in the beginning, though. And he didn't want us to come back."

I didn't know what to say. I just wanted to disappear. Foolishly, I wished I was back in the hospital, where my only concern was getting through group therapy and trying to stomach the bland cafeteria food.

"He'd like to hear from you," Tony said.

"What?" I said. Was he insane?

"Not today. When you're ready. He took it a lot harder than everybody else. I don't know why."

"So I did this," I said.

"Hannah, no—"

"No, I did. I _wanted_ this. I don't know how I could've…" I shook my head.

He looked away. "You were hurting. We all do crazy things when our hearts are broken."

I didn't speak. I wasn't sure how to say even a fraction of what I was feeling inside.

I'm still not.


	8. Clay (8)

**Clay Jensen**

Skye drops me off about ten minutes after the last class lets out. By then, my high has mostly worn off.

"See you, Romeo," Skye tells me as I get out and sling my backpack over my shoulder. She's already driving away by the time I go to tell her… what? _Thank you? I'm sorry? I'll see you tomorrow?_

I'm not worried about it long, either way—instead I'm looking across the parking lot, watching Hannah Baker walk away, toward her mom's car.

It's a movie moment, or at least it feels like it is. My heartbeat seems to triple in speed. My palms sweat. My knees go weak.

"Hannah!" I shout, breaking into a sprint after her. She doesn't turn around. Two, three more times I call for her, and then she's right there in front of me, still not turning around. A weird feeling invades everything—a surreal sense of deja vu. And then I realize why it's all so familiar. This moment, it's like my wish for that night at the party. She's turned away, I'm reaching out to touch her shoulder…

She flinches from me, and turns.

She's crying.

"Hannah," I say. "What's wrong? What can I do?"

"Nothing, Clay." She turns around again.

I grab her arm, too hard, and she flinches again. "I'm sorry," I say. "I didn't mean to—Will you just _stop_ for a second?"

She turns around, wipes the tears from her eyes. Crosses her arms over her chest. "What?" She won't look at me.

Unthinking, I wrap my arms around her. She doesn't pull back, doesn't push me, doesn't lean in—nothing. I might as well be holding a dead girl. An awful, dark thought invades my mind. Is this how she felt beneath Bryce when he…?

A flush rises to my face. I pull back. She's still not looking at me.

"Hannah," I say again. "Can we… can we at least talk?"

The words are barely out and I already regret them. The implied meaning: Can we _at least_ talk, even if you don't want to do anything more?

She shakes her head. "No."

"Hannah—"

"No, Clay. This isn't me saying no and meaning—meaning stay." It's the first reference she's made to the tapes, and it sends a shiver down my spine. Finally she looks at me. "This is me saying no and just meaning no."

"Why?" I say. "You got to say your piece, but I never got to say mine. Did you ever think about that? Did you ever think maybe I had things I needed to say to you, just like you had things to say to me?"

"No," she says. "No, I didn't. Because I wasn't thinking about anybody but myself."

Her tone is free of any trace of sarcasm. For a moment, I just look at her. "That's not true," I say.

"You don't know me," she replies, and backs away.

I want to follow, but my feet seem cemented to the ground. I don't know what to do. How to move.

Again.


	9. Hannah (9)

**Hannah Baker**

The rest of the afternoon is a blur. Clay tracked me down in the parking lot, wanting to talk. I just knew… I knew how it would go. I knew he'd try to comfort me, to make me feel better, to make me feel _normal,_ and I didn't deserve that. I don't deserve a happy ending in a story that's entirely about the ways I've fucked up other people's lives.

My mom can't sleep now. I didn't tell you that. And my parents lost the store because of the hospital bills and the money they sank into that lawsuit. My dad actually started to work as a pharmacist for Wallplex. I've never seen him more miserable, though he always puts on this plastic smile while I'm around, which just makes it all even more depressing

I just… I don't wish I'd succeeded in killing myself, so much as I just wish I'd never been born. A world without Hannah Baker would just be such a nicer place in every way. My pain would be gone—but so would all the pain I've caused other people, which I'm beginning to think matters even more.

No one knows for certain how much impact they have on the lives of other people—I said that. And it's ironic, now, to think that all along that was the message of the tapes—and all along, it turns out I was the one that most needed to hear it.

 _End of Part One_


	10. Hannah (10)

**Part Two**

 **Hannah Baker**

Hello, girls and boys. It's been a while. Almost a month, to be specific. I've gone to record something a hundred times in the interim, but every time I thought about spilling my darkest secrets, unravelling the knots in my mind—well, I just couldn't bring myself to. It may seem silly, but I felt I needed to make some sort of sacrifice, offer some sort of penance for the damage I'd inflicted on others.

I've still been going to therapy, of course, and working on recovering, just in different ways. And I think I'm making progress.

But all of this leaves the obvious question—why have I picked it up again, now? And the answer is, I think I've made everyone—including myself—suffer enough. And strangely, because I want to remember this moment in time, because I'm scared… terrified… it's going to slip away.

Something good has happened. Something impossible and… perfect.

And it all started my first afternoon back at Liberty High, when I found out that my pain had reached so far beyond me.

To be perfectly honest, I don't even remember that night. It's all blurred out, after I returned home from school. Grief has a funny way of absorbing everything, devouring it. When you're inside, you can't imagine ever getting out. But once it's over, it's hard to even articulate what it was like.

The next few weeks I spent on autopilot, avoiding pretty much everyone. It wasn't difficult to do. They were all more than happy to talk _about_ me without talking _to_ me. And when it got especially difficult, I remembered some hokey line I'd read in a self-help meditation book my therapist had recommended, for when people were cruel, or selfish, or disappointing: _I know they suffer._

It sounds stupid, meaningless. But when Courtney Crimson whispered something to Marcus about me being held back in the hallway, and they both laughed, instead of letting it get to me, I thought those words.

I thought, I know Courtney Crimson suffers. I thought about the way I used to catch her longing staring at lesbian couples. About the time she cried over a single B in the girl's bathroom and hadn't been able to stop for a half an hour.

And Marcus. I know Marcus suffers. I've seen his parents. They're elderly, and he's their only son. What a terrible burden, to be so young and already find yourself staring at your own mortality across the dinner table every night.

Maybe I'm wrong. There's always that possibility. But the thing is, you never really know. And if I'd done that sooner—if I'd done that with Alex…

I spent the next few weeks on autopilot. Avoiding everyone, but never forgetting Tony's words. Never forgetting how certain he was that Alex would want to hear from me. I talked to my therapist about it. Picked apart the pros and the cons of the situation. Eventually, perhaps inevitably, decided to call him.

You never know until you try, right?

And yes, I decided to call him. On the phone. Like this was the nineteen nineties. I couldn't stand the idea of waiting for him to respond to a text. I couldn't stand the idea of anything getting lost in translation.

He picked up. That surprised me. I'd expected a voicemail.

"Hello?" he said, and the sound of his voice—exactly as it had been the last time I'd overheard it in the cafeteria—lifted a weight from my chest I hadn't even realized was there.

"It's me," I said. "Hannah Baker."

"Is this some kind of joke?" he asked.

"If it is, the universe hasn't let me in on it yet."

I heard something shift, as if he was sitting up straighter. "It's… fuck. It's _really_ good to hear your voice."

I bit my lip, uncomfortable with the slightest betrayal of emotion in his voice, for reasons I couldn't quite place. "How are you, Alex?"

"How are _you,_ Hannah?" he asked. I suddenly remembered something I'd long forgotten about Alex—the way everything on his tongue sounded sarcastic, even when there was a good chance he was being sincere.

"Well, my record just went platinum and I bought an island in Scandinavia," I said. "So—"

"It's been a boring week."

"Terribly."

A moment of silence. There were so many questions within it, on both sides. Questions I didn't want to ask or have to answer.

"Should we… talk about it?" I said, eventually, because I felt I had to.

"I mean, that's what we'd do if we were two well adjusted people, but…"

"We're not."

"Not even close."

"So what's your Scandinavian island like?"

I can't really remember what we talked about, after that. All I know is that we kept talking. And when I hung up and looked at the call duration, we'd been on the phone for four hours.


	11. Clay (11)

**Clay Jensen**

"So let me get this straight," Skye says. "Your dream girl rejects you and your first thought is 'hey, I bet the girl I just dumped will want to hear all about this.'"

"I didn't actually dump you."

"Clay, Darling, are you familiar with the term 'technicality' or has your SAT prep course not reached five syllable words yet?"

Dumbly, I find myself wondering how she knew, off the top of her head, that 'technicality' was five syllables.

"You're right," I say. "I shouldn't have called. I'm sorry. I just…"

"Use your words, Clay."

Her sarcastic tone makes my muscles tense. "I just needed something to take the edge off."

She laughs. "So you want me to be, like, your _dealer_ , now?"

"No. I just… I just wanted to meet up. But it was stupid."

Silence, for a long time. I wish I could just hang up. Pretend this didn't happen. Pretend nothing happened all day.

"You're an asshole, you know that?" she eventually says.

I think about arguing, for just a minute. But then I realize who I'm talking to. And to her? Definitely an asshole. "Yeah, I'm aware."

"Well, good. As long as you know."

I scoff. "Yeah, well. I guess I'll talk to you later—"

"My parents aren't home. Twenty minutes?"

I frown. "You're serious?"

But she just hangs up.

# # #

Skye greets me at the door in a red velvet mini-dress. Her hair is piled on top of her head—dyed black, now, with a streak of white near the front, Bride of Frankenstein style. It wasn't like that this morning, but I'm not surprised. This is probably the fifth major hair color change she's gone through since we started hanging out.

"Hey," I say, sticking my hands in my pocket. "You look—"

"Even more like a goth outcast than I did before? Because that was sort of the point."

I frown. Her attitude is like it was when we first met—cuttingly dry, sarcastic, distancing. It took months to peel that away the last time. "I'm sorry," I say.

"For what?"

"For everything."

She shrugs. "I've survived worse." Then she steps back, letting me inside.

She has all the windows open, which softens the smell of incense and patchouli. She also has some candles lit, which I'd think meant something about her expectations for the night if I didn't know her better. But I've come by unexpectedly and her house always looked the same way, even at eleven A.M. on a rainy Tuesday during the middle of Summer.

She goes over to her computer, which is on the coffee table, and turns the music up a little bit. It's 'Rhiannon' by Fleetwood Mac, a song I disliked when I first met her, but now don't mind. Then she takes an already rolled joint and lights it. I sit down beside her, close my eyes. It's weird how all of this, in a bizarre way, is starting to feel like home.

A finger brushes over my lips, pulls them a little open, slips the joint in between. I inhale, hold, exhale. Open my eyes. Skye's just staring at me. And I'm thinking, this is not what nice guy Clay would do. Nice guy Clay would be sitting at home, calling Hannah for the fifteenth time to apologize when he wasn't even sure what he'd done wrong. Nice guy Clay wouldn't be going back and forth between two girls. Nice guy Clay would be miserable, and he wouldn't use drugs to try to numb that.

But I don't want to be nice guy Clay now. I'm not sure that I ever did. He just happened, born as much out of fear and timidity as genuine desire.

I lean in, and kiss Skye. And I'm as far from nice guy Clay as I've probably ever been.

Good riddance.


	12. Hannah (12)

**Hannah Baker**

Confession time. When Jessica and I first met Alex, I definitely had a bigger crush on him than she did—and it was clear from the beginning he didn't feel the same. I remember coming home from hanging out with them and wondering what might have happened if she hadn't been there. Would he have eventually come up to my table at Monet's? Would we have become friends? Would he have liked me instead of her?

I knew the answers, of course. We never would've spoken, if it wasn't for her. He wouldn't have ever noticed me.

During my first month at Liberty High, though, I still spent every night returning to that delicious 'what if.' When they started dating, it became too painful, though, and I stopped. But coming back after my attempt and talking to him, I found those little, innocuous fantasies returning. And suddenly, they felt more realistic.

When Alex and I weren't talking on the phone those first few weeks, catching each other up on our lives, joking, talking about books or movies, we were texting. And when we weren't texting, I was thinking about when we would be. And when I finally found the guts to tell him that, he told me he felt the same way.

"So, Standall," I said, immediately after he said that, "I think this the point where you invite me over."

Silence.

"… Unless, of course, you'd rather continue exhausting both our phones like this."

Exhausting both our phones? What was that even supposed to mean?

More silence.

Fuck.

"I just don't want you to freak out when you see me," he said, eventually. There was something naked in his voice, but it disappeared with his next words. "… I mean, it's one thing to know your friend has become a pirate, but another to see it. I don't want you to fall madly in love with me or anything too embarrassing."

"I won't. We can just compare scars," I joked, weakly.

"Hannah," he said.

"I just want to see you."

"Let me think about it."

"I'm not hanging up until I get an answer."

"You mean you're not hanging up until you get the answer you want."

I laughed. "Same thing."

He sighed. "It couldn't be, like, now. My dad's here."

"Is he a pirate, too?"

"He's… sort of…"

"Oh, my God, he is, isn't he? Does he have a peg leg? A parrot? Mad eyeliner skills?"

"No, he just—he sort of blames you. For what happened."

"Oh."

"He just wants someone to blame, that's all, but I figured it be better if you didn't have to deal with that. He doesn't get it. He never has."

"Does he know we're talking?"

"I didn't see a reason to tell him."

"Yeah, of course not."

"You're upset."

"No, I mean… he has every right to feel… however he feels."

"But you're upset."

"I'm not going to kill myself, if that's what you're scared of."

"Hannah," he said, "See this is why I think it's better if…"

"We never see each other again?"

He didn't say anything for a long time.

I picked at my nail, considered repainting it.

"Maybe… maybe tomorrow. He goes to church in the morning. So does my brother. So they won't be around."

I tried to wrap my head around the fact that Alex's family was religious. "It's a date," I said.


End file.
